These guys again?
Excerpts from: Climate scientists plot to hit back at skeptics
Donations to buy ad on climate change
by Stephen Dinan
Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” to gut the credibility of skeptics.
In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of “being treated like political pawns” and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.
“Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules,” Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.
Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.
“This was an outpouring of angry frustration on the part of normally very staid scientists who said, ‘God, can’t we have a civil dialogue here and discuss the truth without spinning everything,'” said Stephen H. Schneider, a Stanford professor and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment who was part of the e-mail discussion but wants the scientists to take a slightly different approach.
The scientists have been under siege since late last year when e-mails leaked from a British climate research institute seemed to show top researchers talking about skewing data to push predetermined outcomes. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authoritative body on the matter, has suffered defections of members after it had to retract claims that Himalayan glaciers will melt over the next 25 years.
…
In a phone interview, Mr. Schneider, who is one of the key players Mr. Inhofe cites, said he disagrees with trying to engage in an ad battle. He said the scientists will never be able to compete with energy companies.
“They’re not going to win short-term battles playing the game against big-monied interests because they can’t beat them,” he said.
…
“What I am trying to do is head off something that will be truly ugly,” he said. “I don’t want to see a repeat of McCarthyesque behavior and I’m already personally very dismayed by the horrible state of this topic, in which the political debate has almost no resemblance to the scientific debate.”
Not all climate scientists agree with forcing a political fight.
“Sounds like this group wants to step up the warfare, continue to circle the wagons, continue to appeal to their own authority, etc.,” said Judith A. Curry, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Surprising, since these strategies haven’t worked well for them at all so far.”
She said scientists should downplay their catastrophic predictions, which she said are premature, and instead shore up and defend their research. She said scientists and institutions that have been pushing for policy changes “need to push the disconnect button for now,” because it will be difficult to take action until public confidence in the science is restored.
“Hinging all of these policies on global climate change with its substantial element of uncertainty is unnecessary and is bad politics, not to mention having created a toxic environment for climate research,” she said.
…
Paul G. Falkowski, a professor at Rutgers University who started the effort, said in the e-mails that he is seeking a $1,000 donation from as many as 50 scientists to pay for an ad to run in the New York Times. He said in one e-mail that commitments were already arriving.
…
George Woodwell, founder of the Woods Hole Research Center, said in one e-mail that researchers have been ceding too much ground. He blasted Pennsylvania State University for pursuing an academic investigation against professor Michael E. Mann, who wrote many of the e-mails leaked from the British climate research facility.
…
In his e-mail, Mr. Woodwell acknowledged that he is advocating taking “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” but said scientists have had their “classical reasonableness” turned against them.
“We are dealing with an opposition that is not going to yield to facts or appeals from people who hold themselves in high regard and think their assertions and data are obvious truths,” he wrote.
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I think this has no legs because they are quite right that a scientist funded ad campaign can’t be big enough.
A government funded one can.
It does, however, show the depths some alarmists are happy to contemplate. I trust all honest alarmists will publicly denounce Ehrlich for the thug he is.
This is the same Ehrlich who said, in the 70s that by 1990 pollution would have reduced life expectancy to 42, that we would have to move away from the seaside because the smell of all sea life rotting would be poisonous (really) & that billions were bound to die of starvation. Since I believe none of these happened I would presumably be a victim of wll funded charlatan’s attacks.
@ur momisugly Willis Eschenbach (01:11:47) :
Sign me up as hench’person’!
Yes – kudos to Dr Curry, she has shown courage again.
Regarding all the Big Oil/Everything ‘Bad’ – money flowing into the coffers of sceptics: well, can they come up with well-researched and documented analyses, such as those about the stream of funding being poured into the various ‘Climate’-NGOs, as shown by Richard North here: http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/ …?
Thought not.
Climate scientists? Biologists? Eh?
Simon would challenge them to a bet. If Erhlich et al. had some sense and wanted to get lots of publicity and enhance their credibility, they’d challenge our side to a bet. A convenient betting mechanism is already set up, on the well-known event-prediction site https://www.intrade.com There are about ten bets available there on future global temperatures.
Didn’t the Cru emails show that what got in the way of the science was the hockey teams aggressively partisan approach?
” Plus Ca change, plus meme chose!”
Their tactic is bad for them and cannot succeed. Much of the public is ignorant of the scam. If they advertise attack ads many people will wonder “I thought the debate was settled” and start searching on the internet. They will find sites like WUWT and Climate Audit and even more of the public will become sceptical of CAGW.
In regards to funding:
“He said the scientists will never be able to compete with energy companies.
“They’re not going to win short-term battles playing the game against big-monied interests because they can’t beat them,” he said.”
REPLY:
January 2003
“ExxonMobil will make a $100 million grant to Stanford University in furtherance of its research into climate change science”
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/11307/ExxonMobil_Stanford_Team_Up_on_Climate_Change.html
CRU Funding
British Petroleum (Oil, LNG)
Central Electricity Generating Board
Eastern Electricity
KFA Germany (Nuclear)
Irish Electricity Supply Board (LNG, Nuclear)
National Power
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (Nuclear)
Shell (Oil, LNG)
Sultanate of Oman (LNG)
UK Nirex Ltd. (Nuclear)
Source: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
————
In 2005, Pachauri helped set up set up GloriOil, a Texas firm specialising in technology which allows the last remaining reserves to be extracted from oilfields otherwise at the end of their useful life.
“He is an internationally recognized figure in energy and sustainable development, having served on numerous boards and committees including Director of the Oil and Natural Gas Company of India; Director of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited;…
Source: http://www.glorioil.com/advisors.htm
“Our chemical lab in Houston is state of the art, custom built for purpose with one goal in mind – to supply the US oil industry with world class biotechnology to increase oil recovery from mature fields.”
Source: http://www.glorioil.com/technology.htm
“Our research facility in India focuses primarily on long term R&D projects such as heavy oil degradation, methane biogeneration from coal beds, and other initiatives.”
Source: http://www.glorioil.com/company.htm
———-
CRU seeks big oil and big business cash
Source:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=171&filename=962818260.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=156&filename=947541692.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=332&filename=1056478635.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=270&filename=1019513684.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1041&filename=1254832684.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=204&filename=973374325.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=185&filename=968691929.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=159&filename=951431850.txt
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=362&filename=1065125462.txt
is Stephen Schneider a biologist?
Willis,
You shall be;
Captain He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. [ jk rowling my apologies to you : ( ]
You are in great company.
Since;
Admiral He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is already taken by Steve McIntrye
Vice Admiral He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is already taken by Anthony Watts
All your evil associates are the nazgul, assorted mountain trolls, etc.
Based on his performance at the British commons hearing the other day, clearly Jones is gollum.
John
‘God, can’t we have a civil dialogue here and discuss the truth without spinning everything,’” said Stephen H. Schneider
Does the term projection occur to anyone? These guys seem determined to accuse the evil sceptics of every single thing they have been caught red handed doing themselves. Can they seriously believe this will convince anyone who hasn’t drunk liberally of the koolaid?
Yes, a civil dialogue would be nice. It’s certainly not what these guys are after though, is it?
Methinks they protesteth overly much.
==================
Well, let’s see who has enough money that they can afford to run ads.
(These antlers for sale — so far no bidders.)
This is what has changed since Climategate:
“In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times”
Those fine scientists running the AGW scam have lost their protective layer of secrecy. They apparently sent emails to other climate scientists to raise money for the ad. Too bad that this time one or more of the recipients contacted a newspaper.
no surprise Paul R. Ehrlich is involved. After all he did coauthor ‘ecoscience’, a book about eugenics.
These guys simply have forgotten what they were told about how science developed, have forgotten that they are here to learn from the Universe and not tell the Universe what it is to do. I mean, a theory is a theory, if new data cannot be predicted by the theory then that theory is dead wrong.
I am a Geologist and if I write a report, I put ALL the data in the report, detail the method, what checks there are on the accuracy of the data and then the conclusions from the data. I have had many reports where I could see the conclusion halfway through and then when ALL the data was considered, had to come to a completely different conclusion.
These guys are obsessed with their self importance.
What would be a just sentence for compromizing the science by CAGWers?
Carbonize them!
DUM DUM DUM dum De dum – dum DE dum
John
Well, if they take out an ad, maybe we should too.
We will need to pony up $1.00 each, then only 50,000 of us will need to sign up. All too easy. This could be done in a month if only 1 out of 40 visitors to WUWT takes the time to donate.
If their ad appears, it will be full of falsehoods, so ours could have a point-counterpoint format, except ours would read claim >> truth (with sources in fine print)
At the end, it could say this ad was funded not by “big oil”, but by “appeals of $1 each from 50,000 people who hold themselves in high regard”
They’re going to run attack ads in THE NEW YORK TIMES!!!
ROTFLMAO!
That’ll convince those sceptics out in flyover country.
Do these nimrods have any clue? Someone needs to explain the concept of “preaching to the choir”.
“… and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.”
What’s the strategy, appeal to your base? What’s next, MSNBC?
What do they need ad’s for anyway. Has the NYT’s told them that they are tired of pushing their propaganda for free and it’s now pay-go?
“Mr. Woodwell acknowledged that he is advocating taking “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” but said scientists have had their “classical reasonableness” turned against them. “We are dealing with an opposition that is not going to yield to facts or appeals from people who hold themselves in high regard and think their assertions and data are obvious truths,” he wrote.”
People often tell you more about themselves then they realize when describing an enemy that they don’t know very well. People tend to assume that the enemy will act as they would if the roles were reversed. Not yielding to facts, holding themselves in high regard, thinking that their assertions and data are obvious truths about sums up the thinking of the AGW inner cabal.
If the facts were behind this group then they wouldn’t need to resort to political attacks. I view this as a frank admission that the science is against them.
Mike Ramsey
As I’ve said, desperate times call for desperate measures. A cornered animal is the most dangerous animal because of the flight-or-fight instinct; flight becomes impossible so the animals only option is to fight.. These eco-groups are cornered by the facts. Flight is now impossible. So their only option is to fight back. Instead of indirectly calling people shill of big oil, they are now directly calling people shills of big oil. And things like that. Of course, they hope nobody ever asks where they got the money to run such slanderous ads. And they hope nobody checks how much money there is for Big Environment.
“God, can’t we have a civil dialogue here and discuss the truth without spinning everything,’” said Stephen H. Schneider”
The time for civil dialog, discussion the truth is over for you. Shortly you will be only answering questions under oath.
al-Reuters: The EU Socialist Counter-Revolution.
“Leading by example is no longer enough.”
…-
“Europe’s Green Diplomacy
Global Climate Governance Emerges as Test Case for EU
“A major opportunity for stronger global clout for the European Union is at hand in the form of the newly minted president of the European Council, its new foreign policy czar and the EEAS. Climate change can no longer be left in the hands of environment ministers or even the new climate commissioner alone.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,681931,00.html
One comment on this. I think Steve Schneider deserves some credit here, and not just for his statements in this news article. While he might be classified as somewhat alarmist in the 1980’s, his thoughts on this topic are quite nuanced, particularly about uncertainty in climate change. Read his essay here:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Climate/Climate_Policy/CliPolFrameset.html
It heavily draws from Jerry Ravetz’s postnormal science
The AGW empire strikes back!
The ‘esteemed’ Gentlemen Erhlich et al must be worried about their funding and their jobs.
The Met Office are also ‘at it’ today.
Here’s the Telegraph slant;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7369339/New-evidence-for-man-made-global-warming.html
Naturally the BBC – (Bu*****t Befuddling Clima(scien)tology) mongers have featured the Met Office c***/conjecture…………… YES – more on melting Arctic Sea Ice (with the polar bears thrown in [the deep end?] – I might add) and the ‘disappearing Antarctic’ ice cap, s’pose its all true, cos the beeb sez it.
Don’t they do any basic research and maybe look up the present Arctic Sea Ice extent and how it is recovering?
I am with evanmjones, bring em on. As stirred up and misinformed as they are, some lawyers are going to make a nice 30%. And they will have to shut up on advise of their legal council. They don’t seem to understand the internet tough guy syndrome.
Apologies if already posted;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8551416.stm
Met Office admits that they can’t even predict the weather three months ahead.